Luton’s financial formula can be the blueprint for running a football club, that’s according to former Crystal Palace owner-turned radio pundit Simon Jordan.
The former Eagles supremo appeared on the Jim White and Natalie Sawyer’s talkSPORT show with Hatters chief executive Gary Sweet, as part of their Off Field Heroes segment.
Talking about the financial issues of football clubs, after Bury were expelled from the EFL, the Hatters man revealed that the club were “hours” away from going out of business back in 2008, when his fan-backed 2020 Consortium rescued the club.
Now Luton is back in the Championship after winning the League One title last term, yet, in their 12 years away, the second tier of English football has established itself as one of the top five richest leagues in the world.
With Town’s turnover at £16million a year, Jordan, discussing the club’s wage structure, said: “I’m gobsmacked that they’re able to be competing in a Championship division which is made up of European Cup winners, Leeds United, Sheffield Wednesday and clubs of that sort of nature, with a £7million year wage bill, because that’s 40 per cent of turnover.
“That puts you in a situation where you can run a football club, you can have financial probity at your centre. You find Luton mid-table at this moment in time in a season, I’d expect, you’d like to consolidate in the Championship and build.
“But this is how, probably, you run a blueprint for a football club. It’s a challenging one because as their time in the Championship stays, they will become subject to the drip-down effect that the Premier League brings.”
Sweet – who also talked about progress with Luton’s Power Court and Newlands Park plans, his role at the club and Town’s refusal to abandon their principles and take sponsorship money from gambling firms – said: “We’ve got to think about doing things differently because the only currency in football isn’t money.
“There’s a points system and finance, but actually there’s also another one, which we believe exists, which is inclusion. Which is inclusion of the community and supporters, the whole family and, actually, the wider football family, which seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth these days.
“The Football League is made up of 72 shareholders, of which only 71 are active at the moment, unfortunately. It is our responsibility to look after the business, going forward, and to look after the game, going forward.”
Sweet was also a founding member of supporters’ group Trust in Luton that successfully forced former owner John Gurney out of the club in 2003 by forcing the club into administration.
On talkSPORT, Sweet extended an offer to talk to Bury fans to explain how his experiences could help them rebuild their football club.
He added of the EFL’s role in protecting clubs: “The league needs restructuring, completely. I think the league know it.
“There’s a question mark over some of the issues and some of the laws around football, particularly Financial Fair Play for example, do they actually work and how do you police them?
“When you have football clubs selling their assets to cover Financial Fair Play rules, there’s something wrong there. Whether it’s unruly, whether it’s unlawful, it is one thing, but it’s highly immoral.
“If I was a Derby supporter, I wouldn’t be happy about parts of my stadium or training ground being sold off. It’s not just Derby, it’s happening at other football clubs too.”
Luton sold their ground years ago.
Luton sold the ground to raise money. They didn’t sell the ground to ‘themselves’ like Derby did, with the sole intention of bringing their accounts into the black for ffp so they could overspend. It’s a bit different.